


The Eyeless

by porcine_trigonometry



Series: Dishonored [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Albarca Baths, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider, Gen, Karnaca (Dishonored), The Eyeless (Dishonored), The Eyeless Gang - Freeform, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 01:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14009340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/porcine_trigonometry/pseuds/porcine_trigonometry
Summary: After the fall of Delilah Copperspoon, a witch is looking for a fresh start far from the bloodfly-infested streets of Karnaca.





	The Eyeless

Billie Lurk was what they called her.

She didn't seem anything special when she first waltzed into the Albarca Baths that night, but she sure brought her own set of rules and her own way of thinking—and then everything changed.

Everything changed.

Delilah Copperspoon had promised change. But the difference there was she couldn't deliver, not really. Not where it mattered. Not to the girls and women at the bottom of the barrel who needed it the most.

No surprise there.

But it seemed so real then, so full of promise, like the world was about to change and everything and everyone would change with it. Delilah pulled the wool over our eyes, made us her willing puppets and blood-thirsty foot soldiers in a war we could never win. Not the way she waged it.

Oh, but I do miss those days… Delilah knew things. She showed us a world worth living in should we succeed, should we give it our all. She taught us how to make wrens swim and henbane bloom crimson. She made stoics cry and turned wilting violets into stone-cold killers.

She could do it all, and then some.

But it wasn’t real. And when the strings snapped and our limbs went limp, the world came crashing down; our dreams shattered.

I’ve often wondered what might’ve been if Delilah had succeeded, if she had taken power the way she’d meant to, and ruled, not as a cheap imitation of an Empress, but as a true ruler who put her subjects before her own petty wants and needs.

I’ll never know and the world will never know, but worst of all, my sisters will never know.

I was like them for a while, wandering aimlessly through the streets of Karnaca long after the initial shock of losing our powers had abated. And like them, I tried to find purpose. Something to sustain me, something to bring me renewed hope. But unlike my sisters, I could never be satisfied with the scraps of what we found. Not the whalebone charms they carved, or the reeking ointments they smeared over their pale bodies beneath the glow of the moonlight.

It only made me sad.

Sad for the things we’d lost. But more, sad for how low we’d fallen, and how we couldn’t seem to dig ourselves out. We were back where we’d started, in the muck and mire of the filthy streets that had birthed us and brought us to Delilah’s doorstep, eager to please.

So I left.

Or I tried to.

The thing no one ever mentions is that running away takes more than guts and an iron will. It takes money. Money for transport, money for bribes for sneaking into a new port. Money for sustaining yourself. Not living, just existing. Just the bare minimum.

Otherwise, you’ll end up no better than when you started.

And that’s where I found myself—penniless and without a future. That is, until Billie Lurk stepped into my life. She could tell I was one of them, but she didn’t care. I wasn’t in the way. I was barely in the doorway. All she needed was an in, and all I needed was an out.

She'd almost passed me by when I tapped her on the shoulder. Stupid, I know. She could’ve slit my throat. But I wanted to be quiet. Even a whisper was risky.

She stowed the blade in her sleeve and glared at me.

“What do you want?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I nodded at the door behind her and at the key in my palm. She understood right away and moved a little closer.

“How much?”

“Enough for the evening ship. Enough to piss on out of here with the next tide…”

She stared at me so intently I started to sweat. I remembered the blade and my own whalebone sword strapped to my hip. I could’ve tried my luck, cut her down, robbed her blind. But I didn’t fancy my chances. Billie Lurk was more than a few scars and a frown on her face. She was the blade between your ribs in the dead of night, she was the chicken wire digging into your throat in some stinking alley.

You didn’t see her coming.

The leather purse pressed into my palm and the key was gone; never even felt it leave my hand.

“Get scarce, witch, before you wash into the bay with the other dead meat.”

She watched me go out the vaulted entrance of the fight club, past my sisters and their new price fighter pets, and across the street.

I left just in the nick of time with nothing to my name but the knowledge of having survived a brush with Death herself. As I snuck and crawled past the hounds of the Grand Serkonan Guard, and slithered through the blood-soaked streets of the Campo Dockyards, I felt a chill at my back, as though I didn’t deserve to make it out.

But I did.

In the weeks and months to follow, news of what had transpired at the Albarca Baths trickled down the grapevine and made its way across the length and breadth of the Empire, enhancing the already enduring legend of Daud and Billie both.

A blaze by the waterfront was the last I ever heard in connection with the name of Billie Lurk. But now, here, alone, so very far away, I still wonder…is she coming for me? Sometime, years from now, when I least expect it?

Will she be merciful? Will she be kind?

Or has she forgotten?

**Author's Note:**

> I always loved stories of people reaching for something impossible and failing, and then clawing their way back again to create something new and perhaps better.


End file.
